Quick silly poll - Has 2011 been a good year for music?

Pablo Honey is GREBT!!!! What choo talking bout, OH NOES?

Blow Out! Thinking About You! even CREPE has really aged quite sweetly. But I guess I just had a soft spot for them as a Ride wannabe shoegaze band. Sigh.

TKOL is their worst album. Pablo Honey wasn't perfect, but at least it didn't sound like a bunch of rejected OK Computer b-sides.

is there like a music version of godwin's law where all threads end up as radiohead discussion

I never liked OKC.

So why did I dash out and buy KidA unheard on day 1? Probably because all the R fans hated it already, so figured it must be great. Was right.

Sorry. KATY B! ST VINCENT! BARBARA PANTHER! EMIKA! PLANNINGTOROCK! ACTIVE CHILD! 2011 has been awesome!

as a staunch Rhead defender round these parts I actually like OKC more than I did when it came out, but I get annoyed when it becomes the default answer for 'album-of-the-decade' if only because 1) it is patchy as fuck, and 2) there are at least ten albums from 97 alone that stomp on it.

xp smh here's something http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/516KBT7FJJL.jpg

I've struggled to find whole albums i really love but it has been a terrific year for singles.

Hey you know I actually started a RH sandbox thread so we could have a place to talk about this stuff without irritating everyone in the world The Lex?

xp I used to think that until I heard the John Maus album. Weirdly enough now 2011 makes sense.

the lex is actually just a joint account used by everyone in the world

I liked the 3 albums I heard

lol singles

Actually the last time I saw The Lex, he was quite drunk in a pub telling me that he didn't actually ~mind~ el Thommo's voice when he sung in his lower register, but swore me to silence about it, and we came up with a cunning plan to have Radiohead and Britney Spears switch remixers for their next release which would probably have AMAZING RESULTS.

I mean, can you imagine?

Codex (Junkie-XL super rave hands in the air remix)
vs
Hold It Against Me (Four Tet minimal gaze ecstacy reconstruction)

That would be the most awesome thing ever.

multiple xposts but:

I love "Creep" but I have never gotten into any of the other songs on that album. In fact, I was so turned off by the rest of that album that I intentionally avoided The Bends and all of its singles and didn't realize how great THAT album was until I was ambushed by "Paranoid Android" on MTV, got into OK Computer and then saw the video for "Just".

From this year, I really really dig Planningtorock, Beyonce, Rihanna (to my complete and total shock and surprise btw), M83, Lamb, PJ Harvey and Creep. (For obv reasons I am recusing myself from listing The Mountain Goats this year) Emika is great but since I only discovered her this week I am holding off on adding her to the list.

video for Just is def what got me into the Bends and Radiohead in general

2011 was as good a year for albums as any, in my opinion, although the singles didn't amaze me as much.

I knew that actually, bcz you called 212 the single of the year

(j/k; I like that song, thx for bringing it to my attention)

all years are equally good

ha -- yeah. And even that one I couldn't give a perfect score.

there is no such thing as time or quality

i am voting classic for lack of a 'v good' option

fuck is the 'suggest ban' option?

2011 has been an excellent year for music, as every year is

it has been a pretty bad year for critics' taste (as...every year is) (except, weirdly, 2009! i know elsewhere it was GAPDY year but i remember feeling so weird that i'd voted for every album in ilm's top 6)

voting Pretty Good Year though, b/c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hepGByXLboo

mission accomplished

Diamond Mine, Bangs & Works 2, Katy B, EMA, When Saints Go Machine, Console, David Comes To Life, Nicolas Jaar, Tom Waits, Author, Ford & Lopatin, Oneohtrix, Rustie, Walls, Sully, St. Vincent, Death Grips, Zomby, John Maus, Battles, Austra, Panda Bear, Night Slugs and stuff, Gang Gang Dance, Ekoclef and quite a few others, all great-to-excellent things that came out this year, but more importantly most of these seem to be doing things a bit differently from before in one way or another.

Interesting post about a study that tries to quantify the effect of music industry profit decline on music quality:

http://timharford.com/2011/11/music-for-love-not-money/

It tries to quantify the relative quality of music produced during different decades based on longevity on the radio and sales charts. In a period of relatively weak quality, you'd expect to see sales and radio play of current releases to decline relative to "oldies". Based on this study, the 2000s (post-Napster era) were no worse than the pre-Napster '90s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfVsfOSbJY0

I just listened to Rustie for the first time earlier this morning and literally have no recollection of how it went and no desire to play it again. I just discovered Austra earlier this week and want to hear them again. I love one When Saints Go Machine song to death and am ambivalent towards the rest. Zomby, I dig. Battles was weak compared to Mirrored. Everything else on Dog Latin's list, I haven't heard and/or don't care about.

you don't like katy b?

actually dan you would love the walls album i swear. its called coracle

[q="lex"]2011 has been an excellent year for music, as every year is

it has been a pretty bad year for critics' taste (as...every year is) [/q]

this

Console came out at the very very end of last year, but I reckon it counts as this year. Been playing bits of it in the Outloud room and people have been digging it quite a lot.

I haven't heard Katy B and am not knocking myself out to check her out.

walls is kind of in the same vein as the chemical brothers or underworld in case you were wondering

OH NOES is dan p?

i am fairly sure you would love katy b, dan

What I've heard of Walls (and admittedly I haven't checked out the whole album in its entirety) was more like Pantha Du Prince?

yeah OH NOES is dan p. People shouldn't hold back on at least checking oout Katy B.

I am certain I would dig both more than this relisten of Pablo Honey I'm doing right now

Katy B has been my late-year discovery.

xpost is that the one with the extra disc? some gems on that.

boo no Walls on US Spotify apparently

okay Katy B is making a great first impression

it does have a bit of that twinkly thing going on but also that sun-dappled psych chems thing too xxxxp

I really tried with Katy B, but I'm thinking the problem was with my own expectations more than anything else.

lex is gonna scream at me for this, but now the buzz/backlash has finished, I've found myself enjoying the odd track off the James Blake album. It's got some pretty rank moments on it, but Wilhelm's Scream, Limit, and the very last track are all "good" moments from this year.

FFS OH NOES, go back and listen to Blow Out at least before you spoil your earholes for anything else with the lovely Katy B.

okay I am def coming back to this Katy B album, I think I was put off by the name similarity with Jessie J

i predict "witches' brew" will particularly blow dan's mind

xp oh god i apologise so much on behalf of my nation for jessie j :(

It's all about "Broken Record" and how Katy B pronounces "record."

Oh man the James Blake album was so damned boring, sorry guys. I feel like a little variety could have spiced that up nicely. I'm imagining a decent album's worth could have been made by mixing up some album tracks with the 2010 EP stuff, but I'm not bothered enough to do so. It just felt like a chore to sit through the album proper.

"Easy Please Me" is the one I'd put on if I was asked to play a track. The Katy B album was very instant hit for me, but I soon grew a bit tired of it. It is a really good album, but after maybe 5-6 plays I just didn't really feel like playing it over and over...

^ this

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

if i saw this, i would have given the third-vote to "above average year."

I'm on my phone: did you embed an Uncle Acid vid Jimmy R?

Bcz Windhand > Uncle Acid

i did

now do 1997 for comparison obv

oh! i missed the poll?

yes

Why I think 2011 was a good year for music

“In the early '70s there were at least ten albums released every week that were fantastic. Now you're lucky to find ten albums a year of that quality. And there are more albums released each week now than there were then.” - Elton John, 2007

elton nailed it, end of the story

pity elton didnt name some of these weeks and list the albums out those weeks to back up his 'theory'

to be fair, Drake wasn't around in the 70s

elton otm but i think he meant 1997 not 'the 70's'

The variation of music that young people are listening to now… it's just the same beat with a different melody on top...I think it's getting a bit samey-samey… it needs a bit of a change-up again.” – Geir Hongro (ILM), 2011

i remember when rock was young

^^^hah!

darraghmac otm